Happy 64th Birthday, John Dahl! Born today in 1956, this American screenwriter and film and television director is best known for his work in the neo-noir genre.
Born in Billings, Montana, Dahl was the second of four children (his brother is American screenwriter, producer and filmmaker Rick Dahl). John spent his young life in and around Montana all the way up through his college years.
When Dahl was seventeen, his interest in film began when he first saw Stanley Kubrick's 'A Clockwork Orange'.
Dahl first attended the Montana State University, and then afterwards transferred to Montana State University's School of Film and Photography. There, he received a degree in film. While studying at MSU, Dahl was a student of Bill Pullman.
At MSU, his first feature film was titled 'The Death Mutants'. It was made on a budget of $12,000.
While at Montana State, Dahl played guitar in the punk rock band called The Pugs.
It was there that he also met his wife, American cinematographer Beth Jana Friedberg.
Post-graduation, they both left Montana to attend the private not-for-profit graduate film school AFI Conservatory in Los Angeles, California.
While there, Dahl entered the directors program and Friedberg entered the cinematography program.
Dahl later started his career as a storyboard artist and assistant director.
He continued through the 1980s, making short films and directing three music videos for Kool & the Gang and American musician, composer, songwriter, and guitar teacher Joe Satriani.
Dahl's first two films were the 1989 American crime/neo=noir film 'Kill Me Again' and the 1993 American noir/mystery film 'Red Rock West'.
The following year, Dahl his third feature film was the one of which he is best known for directing.
This was the 1994 British/American neo-noir erotic thriller film 'The Last Seduction', starring American actress Linda Fiorentino. Friedberg served as an additional camera operator.
Looking to escape her unhappy marriage, villainous femme fatale Bridget Gregory (Fiorentino) convinces her husband, Clay (Bill Pullman), to sell cocaine, then steals the profits and runs out on him.
Bridget later stops in a small town en route to Chicago, where she ensnares her next conquest, insurance man Mike Swale (Peter Berg).
After getting a job at his insurance company, Bridget convinces Mike to run a scam -- but things take a deadly turn when she recruits him to help get rid of her husband.
The film was produced by ITC Entertainment and distributed by October Films.
Fiorentino's performance generated talk of an Oscar nomination, but she was ineligible because the film was shown on HBO before it was released to theaters.
Because of this, October Films and ITC Entertainment tried to sue the Academy. However, they were unable to make Fiorentino eligible for a nomination.
American screenwriter Steve Barancik (of whom wrote 'The Last Seduction') said that he believed the film was originally pitched as a "standard skin-e-max" low-budget movie to ITC Entertainment even though the filmmakers had "an under-the-radar intention to make a good movie".
ITC Entertainment (ITC) executives were also upset with a scene in which Fiorentino is dressed as a cheerleader and wears suspenders over her breasts.
Barancik recalled, "Apparently, a guy from the company who was monitoring things and watching the dailies, saw the suspenders over Linda's nipples, and shouted out, 'Are we making an art movie?!'
He shut down production and called the principals of the movie on the carpet and they all had to pledge that they had no artistic pretensions". The scene was afterwards cut, and the sexual roleplaying theme was lost.
Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars, highlighting Fiorentino's ability to project her character with dry humor and a freedom from Hollywood conventions typically surrounding a female antagonist.
Ebert later ranked the film fifth on his year-end list of 1994's best movies.
He wrote: "John Dahl's The Last Seduction knows how much we enjoy seeing a character work boldly outside the rules. It gives us a diabolical, evil woman, and goes the distance with her.
We keep waiting for the movie to lose its nerve, and it never does: This woman is bad from beginning to end, she never reforms, she never compromises, and the movie doesn't tack on one of those contrived conclusions where the morals squad comes in and tidies up."
Five years later, the sequel, being the 1999 British/American neo-noir thriller/romance film 'The Last Seduction II' featured none of the original cast and starred Joan Sevrance as the character from which Fiorentino originated.
Durin an interview years later, Dahl had stated: "This film captured my imagination so much. It was the first film that I saw that made me realize that somebody has to make this stuff. Somebody has to build those sets. Somebody has to paint those paintings.
All of a sudden it became accessible. The movie was so compelling and interesting to me on so many levels.
The one thing that struck me was that somebody made a movie, and that it was something that maybe ,possibly, I could do."
The interview was as told to American journalist, author, and film columnist Robert K. Elder.
He later used it as a chapter for the compilation of his collection of interviews for his 2011 biographical film criticism book The Film That Changed My Life (also known as The Film That Changed My Life: 30 Directors on Their Epiphanies in the Dark).
A reserved Montanan, Dahl had eventually gravitated toward cinematic stories that bore little resemblance to his peaceful roots and made a name for himself as a superb neo-noir director in the 1990s.
Dahl is an assured director of modern film noirs who has injected new life into the genre with a series of tough, economical, and atmospheric tales. He tells unsentimental stories of hopelessly stupid men who take the fall for beautiful dames.
Whereas most movies of this ilk are set against the backdrop of urban Los Angeles or New York City, this Montana native finds the darkness in the heart of middle America, in claustrophobic towns surrounded by great open spaces.
In an era of imitations, both cheap and lavish, only Dahl can offer the real deal.
Dahl has been active from 1985–present.
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